About Me

Born in the late 60's, Chesy hails from a Welsh mining village with a long name and was pretty glad when he got the Hell out of there. He got into Rock/Metal in about 1980, thanks to a TISWAS related incident (Rainbow video for All Night Long) and thankfully has never looked back.
Chesy often sang solo in the school choir, but thanks to a puberty related incident his voice is now completely bolloxed, although in his own head Paul thinks he sounds like a blend of Coverdale and Dio (R.I.P).
He was brought up on the classics - Deep Purple, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, Rush, Whitesnake and loved melodic rock and the Hair Bands of the 80's. (Nowadays, he has progressed a little and prefers a more technical and/or progressive metal - Dream Theater, Rush, Symphony X, Porcupine Tree, Pain Of Salvation, Spock's Beard. He hates Black and Death Metal (can't stand the grunting) but for some unknown reason loves the magnificent Opeth! He wont stop this blog until his beloved FM finally play the likes of the NEC as a headlining act!!!

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Unruly Child - 'Can't Go Home' Album Review

Unruly Child – Cant Go Home

Grunge well and truly fucked up my music.
All the bands I'd loved had packed it in. Some would say a new movement was
needed as the hair metal bands of the time were getting out of hand and writing
copious amounts of tripe. It wasn’t until I found a magazine called Hard Roxx
in 1997 that this world opened up for me again. Not only that, there were a
whole host of bands that had still been releasing albums that were so
underground, it was if Jules Verne had a record label. Between 89-97 I only
really listened to bands that has just about managed to survive grunge and were
still releasing music.

Cracking melodic rock bands passed me by –
Red Dawn, Signal, Ten, Talisman, etc., the list is huge. One voice really stood
out for me once I started delving back into this world, and it was a familiar
voice…..the voice of one Mark Free. The first King Kobra album was probably one of my top 5 hair metal
albums of the 80s, so much so, I re-recorded the bugger at least 3 times on
cassette. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that he had still been releasing
music as a part of Signal, Unruly Child, and at that current time was a solo
artiste.

The original
members of the legendary melodic hard rock quintet Unruly Child have reunited
to release a brand new album with Frontiers Music Srl entitled “Can’t Go Home”.

Marcie Michelle Free (vocalist - King Kobra, Signal), Bruce Gowdy (guitarist –
Stone Fury, World Trade), and Guy Allison (keyboardist – Lodgic, World Trade,
Doobie Brothers) together with the original band members from the first record,
drummer - Jay Schellen (Hurricane, World Trade, Asia), and bassist - Larry
Antonino (Pablo Cruise), comprise the line-up for this recording.

Well, Marcie
still has the voice to melt the hardest of rock hearts. 'The Only One' is upbeat,
just screams Summer and a top down in your convertible. If you don’t have one,
just wind the windows down and stick it on full blast. ‘Four Eleven’ has this
choppy riff that just is a bit different and completely infectious. At this
point, I don’t know if it’s the quality of production, or the fact that I’m
streaming the album, as it sounds a bit weak and thin in the ‘oomph’ stakes.
'Driving Into The Future' isn’t a song about Marty McFly, initially it’s a tad
music by numbers but picks up with the guitar solo and the message so far is
one of a feel good album. ‘Get On Top’ is full of layered harmonies. It’s a bit
of a plodder, but the vocals save the day. ‘See if She Floats’ is drowning in
its own averageness. Its not really inspiring a track. ‘She Can’t Go Home’ is
the closet offering we get so far to a ballad., with Free’s voice being one of
the best instruments and its probably the best of the bunch so far. Transgender
aside Marcie still sounds like Mark of years ago and that isn’t a bad place to
be as its easy to get lost and swept away in the vocals. 'Point Of View' is again
a powerful uplifting track, one that harks back to the debut album. ‘Ice Cold
Sunshine’ and ‘When Love Is Here’ sees UC stepping up the harmonies and are
both examples of Allison’s great keyboard playing. The latter is another that
takes influence from the debut. In my eyes, you can never have enough
harmonies. ABBA taught me that from an early age!

‘Sunlit Sky’ is
a proggy and 70s hippyish sounding song that again features Allison’s keyboard
skills. The last track ‘Someday Somehow’ is bookended by a fake audience, and
is an average way to bow out unfortunately.

One thing that
unites the UC albums, they never seem short of ideas for a dodgy album covers.

In the light of
recent times and the now abundance of melodic rock festivals, the time is right
surely for a UK appearance. It’s just a case of which one gets lucky (and pays
the airfare) and becomes the one to showcase the excellent Unruly Child.

As a final
comment ‘Cant Go Home’ is good, but not as good as the debut.